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We’re slowly getting used to the idea of not having a Festival this year, but still assembling interesting historical content here roughly every week. This week:

Ireland during the Second World War (aka the Emergency) is definitely a theme we want to explore at a future festival, and here is an interesting article on RTE about food and drink here during the wartime period.

On the subject of the Decade of Centenaries, HistoryHub.ie (based at UCD) reminded us via Twitter to listen to this lecture, given in 2016 by Professor Charles Townshend, on the Complexities of Commemoration.

Festival contributor Dr Richard Butler has just published, with Cork University Press, his book ‘Building the Irish Courthouse and Prison: A Political History 1750-1850’ which we can highly recommend. Hear his contribution to our first Festival, in 2017, here – his subject was the architecture of Bishop Lucey’s churches in Cork.

We’re really sad that we are having to cancel the 2020 Festival, but already looking forward to 2021. In the meantime, we will continue to post weekly updates on interesting things to read, watch and listen to with a historical theme and check on our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts too.

This week:

Ambassador Dan Mulhall has spoken twice at our Festival, and is well-known for his interest in poetry and his regular postings of Irish poetry on his Twitter feed. Yesterday he wrote the Irish Times’ Irishman’s Diary on Yeats and the Spanish flu pandemic.

The River-side is the blog of UCC Library’s research collections and has some interesting posts, including most recently a series called Mapping Cork: Trade, Culture and Politics in Late Medieval and Early Modern Ireland.

The Skibbereen Heritage Centre, although sadly closed at the moment, has good articles on its website looking at our local history here in West Cork – see here for features on specific buildings in Skibbereen, local historical figures, the dreadful famine years and other topics.

The RTE History Show on 17 May featured Festival contributor Lar Joye talking about weapons from the revolutionary era, including quite an insight into how to throw a hand grenade successfully. Lar spoke at greater length on a similar subject at our 2018 Festival and his talk can be heard here.

On the same programme, the producer Eithne Hand talked about the assassination of RIC officer District Inspector Percival Lea-Wilson, 100 years ago this year. Her grandfather, Liam Tobin, was one of his killers. She also discussed the link between Lea-Wilson’s death and the Caravaggio painting The Taking of Christ, which hangs in the National Gallery, and is reproduced below.

We are sad to annouce that we have decided, after much discussion, to cancel the History Festival this year. We had hoped that by delaying the decision we might have been able to find a way of making the physical hosting of the Festival possible in August. It is now clear that is very unlikely to be the case and we don’t want to take risks with the safety of festival-goers. We will be putting some new digital content on this website over the Festival weekend.

We are already planning our 2021 Festival, which will be even better than the 2020 one would have been. Meanwhile, all the talks from our last three Festivals are easily accessible on this website (2019 here and the previous two years here), and we continue to post interesting history-related content on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as weekly round-ups here of things to read, watch and listen to in lockdown and beyond.

Another selection of interesting articles and films on historical themes:

The RTE website carried this article recently by Sean O’ Duibhir on Rita Childers, who he says could have become Ireland’s first female president in 1974, but for a combination of civil war politics and poor political choreography.

In the Irish Times on Thursday was an interesting article on food culture in Ireland highlighting a new research project on food in Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries. The lead researcher is Dr Susan Flavin, Associate Professor of Early Modern History at Trinity, who spoke at our 2017 Festival. You can hear Susan’s talk here.

Also in the Irish Times earlier in the week, this on links between Ireland and South Africa.

An intriguing piece in The Guardian on architecture and urban planning after the pandemic. The writer, Oliver Wainwright, looks at some historical precedents including the idea that cholera shaped 19th century street layouts – the introduction of sewerage systems to help prevent cholera outbreaks required the roads above them to be wider and straighter.

The London Library has put some of its literary and historical events online – they can all be accessed here. Particular highlights for us included lawyer and writer Phillippe Sands talking about his book on Nazi fugitives, The Ratline. Further down on the page, Hallie Rubenhold speaks about her book The Five, which looks at the lives of five working class women in 19th century London, who had one thing in common – they were the victims of Jack the Ripper. One of them, Mary Jane Kelly, was Irish.

Another assortment of interesting articles, podcasts and videos on historical themes. And something about coffee too ….

Two anniversaries this week, both related to world wars. Firstly, on & May it was 105 years since the Lusitania was sunk off the Old Head of Kinsale by a German submarine, with the loss of 1,198 people. The Cobh Heritage Centre has an exhibition on the Lusitania, and a good summary on its website, including some fascinating photos. The poster below used the tragedy to encourage Irishmen to join the British army.

And on a much larger scale of tragedy, the end of the Second World War in Europe on 8 May 1945 (VE Day): the Irish Times had this on some of the Irishmen who joined up – some estimate as many as 66,000 of them. Many from West Cork joined the Royal Navy or the Merchant Navy. In the same newspaper, Frank McNally wrote about Kay Summersby, born near Baltimore who was General Eisenhower’s driver and secretary during the war, and provided him with huge emotional support, and maybe more (although in some ways that should not be the focus of her of story).

More locally, Skibbereen Heritage Centre has produced a video on the work they are doing to promote local heritage while the Centre is closed to visitors.

A podcast from Dublin City Libraries & Archives, in which art historian Jessica Fahy discusses portraits of Irish women writers in the collections of the Hugh Lane Gallery. It focuses on the period from the late 19th century until the late 1930s and includes Lady Gregory, Katharine Tynan and Alice Stopford Green.

A nice story from the Yay Cork website about an 86-year old bar of soap. And finally, not history related at all but almost as important – coffee. Yay Cork also lists all the coffee roasters who are doing home delivery in Cork during lockdown – including The Golden Bean who have served fantastic coffee for the last three West Cork History Festivals.

Friday was Bealtaine (aka May Day), and here is a fascinating article by Clodagh Doyle, curator of the Irish Folklore Division of the National Museum, on May Day customs in Ireland.

The Royal Irish Academy’s book A History of Ireland in 100 Words (which has a fantastic cover, pictured and similarly witty illustrations throughout the book) also has an online exhibition, A History of Ireland in 10 Words, on its website.

The RIA’s Irish Historic Towns Atlas series is online including, in Cork, Youghal and Bandon and further afield Fethard (Tipperary), Athlone, Dublin and Belfast.

On a very different subject, the Irish Times published this about an Irishman who was present at the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945. His photographs are being displayed by the National Museum of Ireland. Albert ‘Paddy’ Sutton died in 2018 at the age of 96 but never forgot what he witnessed in the camp.

An article by the Southern Star from 2017 was re-shared on social media this week and caught our eye – it looks at the death of Cornelius Crean, brother of the Arctic explorer Tom Crean. Cornelius was in the RIC and was killed in an IRA ambush in 1920 in Upton, during the War of Independence.

And finally, to mark the birthday yesterday of Edith Somerville, one of West Cork’s best known writers who lived very close to where the West Cork History Festival is held, see below the front cover of Maria and Some Other Dogs. It’s one of Somerville’s lesser known works, published in 1949 and was her last and features illustrations by Edith including this one of Maria herself.

Another of our (irregular) round-ups of interesting articles and websites to find historical and archaeological subjects:

Today is Anzac Day and there is a fascinating article by Damian Shiels on his website about an Anzac by the name of Ambrose Haley who is buried in Midleton graveyard in east Cork. His cousin, an IRA volunteer killed in 1921, is buried nearby.

23 April marked the anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 – this website was developed in 2014 by Trinity College Dublin to mark 1000 years since this significant event and has lots of information about the battle and its context.

Two articles about very different periods of history in the Irish Times recently: Roger Stalley writing on high crosses – with some good photos including one from Monasterboice showing two men pulling each other’s beards – and Nathan Mannion on the ‘wine’ geese who left Ireland after the Williamite Wars and went into the wine trade, either producing or making wine. Cork-born Richard Hennessy is probably the most famous, but they also include Skibbereen-born wine broker Abraham Lawton, based in Bordeaux and from whom Thomas Jefferson sought advice on stocking his wine cellar.

The Roaringwater Journal always has interesting content, and its authors, Finola and Robert, post new things every Sunday on the history and archaeology of West Cork (we should declare an interest – they are on the Festival committee!)

Another of our (irregular) round-ups of interesting articles and audio on historical and archaeological subjects:

An article on the Irish Georgian Society’s website caught our eye, as it highlights some of the historic buildings in the Cork town of Youghal. ‘From Warden’s House to Myrtle Grove’ was originally published in 2017 and its author is Peter Murray, who spoke at our 2018 Festival.

BBC Radio 4’s Today programme has been featuring poems read by BBC correspondents and others. Here is Fergal Keane – who we are delighted will be at our 2020 Festival – reading from the Benedictus: Book of Blessings by John O’Donohue.

The Irish Story website is always worth a visit and is regularly updated (or you can sign up to their newsletter) – fascinating articles recently on General Henry Tudor by Sean William Gannon and Epidemics in Ireland by John Dorney. John is the editor of the Irish Story and spoke at last year’s Festival.

The Discovery Programme is a government-funded body that conducts advanced research in Irish archaeology and related disciplines, often using new technologies. They have published a series of short articles on some of their recent work called A Research Miscellany, which includes many intriguing projects. The piece on the aerial photographer Leo Swan is particularly interesting.

Dr Connie Kelleher, another Festival contributor, has just published her book The Alliance of Pirates: Ireland and Atlantic piracy in the early 17th century (Cork University Press) which we can highly recommend.

And finally, two articles that are not about history but both very enjoyable – Frank McNally in the Irish Times on bookshelves and Festival contributor Ronan McGreevy in the same paper on star-gazing during lockdown.

In 1922, Harry Clarke was commissioned to design six two-light lancet stained glass windows in the convent chapel of the Presentation Sisters in Dingle, Co Kerry. They were completed in 1924 and represent the life of Christ. The chapel is now the Díseart Institute of Education and Celtic Culture. The scenes below – which seemed appropriate for this time of the year – are from the Agony in the Garden and Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene.

We are lucky to have our own Harry Clarke’s close by, in St Barrahane’s in Castletownshend, which depict St Luke, St Louis and St Martin, and a Nativity window behind the altar with St Brigid, St Fachtna and St Barrahane.

Here are a few articles and films on historically-related subjects that caught our eye recently:

20 March was the 100th anniversary of the killing in Cork of Tomás Mac Curtain, Lord Mayor of Cork by the RIC – here are two accounts of his death, one from the Century Ireland website and the other from the Irish Examiner.

Damian Shiels’ You Tube film on Irish women who married US sailors during the First World War

The Church of Ireland Historical Society has put the proceedings of its 2017 Conference on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation online here

The Trinity Long Room Hub has put up a selection of lectures from its archives, chosen by Festival Honorary President Professor Roy Foster. He has included a lecture by the late Professor David Fitzpatrick, another Festival contributor.

BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time podcast on the 18th century gin craze – first broadcast in 2016, but really worth a listen

A really interesting listen from Amplify Archaeology, hosted by Neil Jackman, in which he discusses Ireland’s Neolithic passage tombs with Dr Jessica Smyth from UCD. There are at least 230 known passage tombs in this country, of which Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth in Co Meath are amongst the best known. These monuments can also be found along Western Europe’s Atlantic coast in Spain and Portugal, Brittany and the western parts of Britain.

Dr Smyth leads the Passage Tomb People project, which uses a multi-disciplinary approach to look at the societies which built passage tombs. Find out more about the project here.

Festival co-founder Victoria Kingston helped develop the content for the new exhibition at the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre which interprets the passage tombs of the area, including Knowth and Newgrange. Dr Smyth was on the academic advisory board for that project.

Lough Abisdealy is part of the Liss Ard estate, which neighbours Rosebank where the West Cork History Festival takes place. The Lough is up to 20 metres deep in places and writer Edith Somerville, who lived in nearby Castletownshend, is alleged to have spotted a mysterious long black creature in its waters.

Listen to Festival contributor Professor Eunan O’Halpin on Newstalk discussing the recent controversy over plans to commemorate the RIC and DMP. Professor O’Halpin is a member of the Expert Advisory Group on Commemorations.

And here is another Festival contributor, retired Garda Jim Herlihy, interviewed in the Irish Times about his recent experiences in relation to this controversy. Jim is a member of the Harp Society which campaigns for a memorial for the RIC and the DMP.

Both their contributions to our 2019 Festival – Jim Herlihy’s specifically about the RIC – can be heard on our 2019 Podcasts and Playback page.